The Lysistrata Project: A World-Wide Play Reading for Peace

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata to be read as part of worldwide peace effort on March 3

Faculty and students from Loyola University’s Department of Classical Studies and Women’s Resource Center are participating in the Lysistrata Project, a worldwide reading of the ancient Greek comedy, Lysistrata, on Monday,March 3 at 1 p.m., in the Palm Court, on Loyola’s main campus. Douglass Parker’s translation, which is easily accessible to the modern audiences, will be used.

Lysistrata is the story of women from opposing Greek states who unite to end the Peloponnesian War by refusing to sleep with their husbands until the men agree to lay down their swords. Powerless in their society and distraught over too many of their children dying in battle, the women use the only tactic available to them: they withhold sex.

The Lysistrata Project has scheduled 538 readings in 36 countries for March 3, 2003, as a way to voice opposition to rush to wage war on Iraq. Lysistrata Project participants will read the ancient play as a way to add their voices to the anti-war protests going on globally. The project began early in January by New York City actors Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower. Schedules permitting, well-know actors Mercedes Reuhl, F. Murray Abraham, Peter Boyle and others will participate in the New York reading.

For additional information on the project, contact Davina McClain, Classical Studies, 865-3683 or go to www.lysistrataproject.com